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A recent Washington Post investigation has made its rounds across major U.S. news outlets, revealing more information about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) massive surveillance efforts. Fears of privacy rights activists are further confirmed by the study, which used intercepted intelligence attained by whistleblower Edward Snowden to show that the NSA gathers significantly more data from non-targets than legitimately sanctioned national security targets:

On Saturday, the Washington Post published a detailed exposé on the spying practices of the National Security Administration during the four year period from 2009-2012. By now, it is no longer any secret that the NSA has been up to no good with its surveillance of innocent people, but the sheer extent of these violations is shocking, even in light of what we already knew.

This Independence Day, millions of Americans will gather to watch fireworks, grill some burgers and dogs, and celebrate the hard-fought freedoms of our forefathers. But in the heady rush of red, white, and blue patriotism, it’s important to remember what those freedoms actually mean, and to examine whether they still remain intact today.

The House passed an amendment on June 19 to require the National Security Agency (NSA) and other intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant prior to collecting the communications of American citizens. This is pretty basic stuff, and it’s not a partisan issue - the amendment passed with the support of 158 Democrats and 135 Republicans.

On Thursday night, the House of Representatives voted on an amendment (H.Amdt. 935), led by Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), that would require the NSA and other intelligence agencies to follow due process and obtain a warrant to collect the communications of American citizens. Congress has come close to passing limitations on government surveillance since Edward Snowden exposed the extent of the NSA's intrusion into our privacy, but consistently came just a few votes shy.

As one of our over 6 million FreedomWorks activists nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and urge him or her to vote YES on the Sensenbrenner amendment to H.R. 4870, the Department of Defense Appropriations bill. Co-sponsored by a bi-partisan coalition that includes Reps. Amash, Lofgren, Conyers, and Massie, this amendment would disallow any funding in the bill from being used to search for the communications of U.S. citizens gathered without a warrant.

The government seems to have a data problem. While the NSA has apparently been storing massive amounts of data on innocent Americans deep within its sinister archives, the IRS and the US Census Bureau just can’t seem to keep track of anything. What a difference an acronym makes.